


Hammer to fall

by Lilys_Eyes



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band), We Will Rock You - Elton/May/Taylor
Genre: Dark, Eye Trauma, Gen, Heavy Angst, Mental Breakdown, Non-Graphic Violence, Panic Attacks, Partial Loss of Vision, They all die in this, Vomiting, Wetting, Wrongful Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-07 16:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilys_Eyes/pseuds/Lilys_Eyes
Summary: 300 years from now, a boy called Galileo and girl called Scaramouche will hear the story of how the freedom fighters of Queen were captured and secretly killed by Globalsoft during the first battle for the soul of the planet and of the key they left for a hero to one day discover. A key that would destroy Globalsoft`s power and liberate music once again. This is that story.Small prequel to the musical We will rock you





	1. This is our last dance

„Ground control to Major Bri?“

„Uh, yeah?“  He`d been completely lost in thought again. So very many thoughts swirling around in his head and yet none wanted to find their way onto his lips.

“Past one hundred thousand miles again?” Freddie smiled up at him knowingly.

Brian shook his head, frustrated with himself.

“Sorry, Freddie”, he muttered, running a hand through his curls.

“`s okay, c`mere, Professor Scatterbrain.” The man on the bed gestured impatiently to him, or as impatiently as he still could in his weakened state.

Swallowing the reflexive urge to correct his friend _,_ Doctor _Scatterbrain_ , _Fred, if I´d finished my thesis, I`d be Doctor Scatterbrain now,_ Brian immediately sat down next to him, trying to return the other man`s smile. Freddie grasped his hand in his now so painfully thin one and Brian could already feel the smile freeze on his face, threatening to shatter.

“Before you leave, tell me just one thing, darling.” Freddie`s glorious voice was now hardly more than a rasp.

Brian just swallowed and nodded, unsure of his own voice.

“Did you have fun?” Freddie asked, his sunken eyes now impossibly sparkling and hopeful, making Brian wonder how this amazing man could still feel anything even close to hope at a time when to him there seemed to be absolutely none.

His chuckle came out more of a sob.

“Yeah, Freddie, I had fun…more fun than I thought a skinny nerd from fucking Feltham ever could have in his life.”

He gave Freddie`s hand a gentle squeeze.

“Good. `cause so did I. I had a fanfuckingtabulously good time.”

Freddie made a fist, raising it only a little, but his smile was still as radiant as ever. How was it possible for someone so close to death to look so cheeky and proud still? There was no doubt in Brian`s mind that if somehow he were facing an audience of thousands now, this dying man would still be able to hold them in the palm of his bony, trembling hand.

“I`m glad, Freddie, I`m glad.” Was all he finally managed to say, lightly patting his friend`s shoulder.

Freddie let out a content sigh, as if after a long, satisfying sip of Champagne, before scrabbling around under his pillow for something. Without thinking, Brian immediately tried to help, but his hand was swatted away with an annoyed frown.

“Ah, here it is.” Freddie handed him a small, folded square of paper. He accepted it almost reflexively.

“What`s that, Fred?”

Now Freddie looked almost coy.

“What we`ve talked about, they key…well, my part of it,” he said softly.

So this was it, Freddie was entrusting him with his last treasure. The last song Queen would ever write and the only one Freddie would never live to hear even in its most rudimentary form. The one song they all hoped they would never have to play. And now words finally failed him, all he could do was press the paper reverently to his lips and slip it into his shirt pocket before enveloping the other man in a tender embrace. It would be their last, they both knew it.

“Goodbye, Freddie.” Brian pressed a chaste kiss against the other man`s temple. “I love you…and I always will.”

Freddie chuckled softly against his ear, the sound already accompanied by a sickly, wet rattle.

“Well, how could you not?” He asked impishly, despite the tears now shining in his eyes. “Goodbye, Brimi, love you too.”

\--------------------------------------------------

After Freddie is gone and it is starting to become clear that they won`t be able to stop this brutal machine that`s been beginning to roar around them ever louder each day, Brian unfolds the paper and plays for Roger and John, just once, once will be enough, they`ll remember it for the rest of their days anyway. Roger nods along, already creating a rhythm in his head, even cracking a small smile once or twice. John just sits there, ramrod straight and stock-still and listens.

 Brian is aware that Freddie`s death has affected the younger man in ways that he and Roger can comprehend only so far. Freddie had been their singer, their friend, their brother, but he had been John`s voice and now that voice had been reduced to ashes.

Two weeks later, Roger wordlessly hands him a sheet of paper. He doesn`t have to say anything, Brian knows what it is. This time when he plays, it`s only to Roger softly tapping his foot, John now just the receiver lying next to the phone on the table. They all have no idea how much time they have left to spend with their families and John doesn’t want to miss a second, not even for this. But he`s there in the silence at the other end of the line, listening.

Months pass before the bassist shows up on Brian`s doorstep, Roger in tow. He doesn’t have any sheet of paper for Brian, just an acoustic guitar, figures. Brian has to bite back a small smile when John unceremoniously plonks himself onto a chair and immediately starts playing. _Never miss an opportunity to deny the old poodle another solo, do you_ , Brian thinks fondly.

They are the only ones left when things begin to go wrong, really, really wrong. Their families already carried away by private planes in the dead of night to somewhere unknown even to them. A stranger`s voice on the telephone telling them “they`re safe” all they will ever hear of them for the rest of their lives.

Anita is another matter, she can hardly leave unnoticed. The first time Brian mentions divorce, she almost slaps him. She doesn`t want him to go through this alone, she insists. They spend the entire night arguing, shouting, crying. By morning she finally concedes and Brian thinks he has never loved her more, or hated himself more.

They move into separate houses and stop attending any social events together, giving the press something to sanctimoniously sneer about. Then, after a carefully rehearsed shouting match in a restaurant, it is over. This time Anita really does slap him. They just stare at each other with tears in their eyes for a moment before she finally storms out, leaving him to keep on staring at that Anita-shaped hole she has left in his universe. They don`t meet again after that evening, but a week after their divorce is finalized, someone begins to send him empty postcards with pictures of badgers on them.

The last one he receives before they come to take him away, he will keep in his shirt pocket right until the end.

 

 

 

 


	2. Waiting for the hammer to fall

“Where do you think they are now?”

Roger seems to be talking to no one in particular, gazing out through the barred little window, tapping his cigarette against the rim of the plastic cup in his hand. John doesn`t even look up from the spot on the floor at which he`s been staring for hours now.

Brian runs a hand through his hair, clears his throat before his speaks. They all speak so little now, their voices already gathering a thin coat of rust neither of them seems to be able to shake.

“South America maybe…or Africa”, he says eventually.

Roger just nods slowly.

“Antarctica would be nice,” John says suddenly and two surprised faces immediately turn to the man sitting there on the low, metal cot.

“Could build snowmen all year round there.”

 

\-------------------------------------------

 

That is how the days pass for them in their cell, silence, broken only occasionally by questions to which none of them has a real answer or answers to which none of them knows the question. The worst are the questions to which they still have answers.

One night, when John is already asleep on his cot and Brian as always awake on his, Roger pushes himself up on his elbows and turns to him, his eyes large and black in the darkness.

“Bri, d`ya think it`s true…it`s true that they always make the weakest one go first?” he whispers.

It seems like minutes pass before Brian can bring himself to reply.

“I believe that`s usually how it happens, yeah.”

John wasn`t the weakest, but they both know he was the weariest of them.

“Then you`re going to have to be the strongest.”

That is what Brian`s been fearing, because he has absolutely no idea how.

 

\---------------------------------------------

 

He also has no idea what happens to his friends when the men come to take them from their cell, they don`t talk about that. The first time, when they return John, white-faced and speechless, he slumps to the floor and just shakes and shakes and shakes. With Roger it is more obvious, it is written all over his bruised and bleeding face.

Groaning, he sits down at the old formica table and starts to gingerly prod at his split, swollen lips before spitting a small, bloody lump into his palm.

“Oh fuck…they knocked out my tooth”, he rasps.

Brian just stares in horror.

“Bet you wish you`d become a dentist now, mate”, John says. Then he starts to chuckle.

Soon they`re all chuckling, even Roger, even Brian, although he has no idea why. He doesn`t even stop when he realizes he`s started to pull out clumps of his hair with both hands. It`s only when John`s chuckle suddenly becomes a horrible strangled sob and he throws his arms around Roger to press his lips against the other man`s black and blue cheek in a vain effort at something like healing magic, that he finally stops. John`s kiss has to hurt more than it helps, Brian thinks, but Roger doesn`t flinch even once.

The men that take him into the interrogation room don`t touch him, they don`t have to. They simply don`t let him sleep. At first the light seems blinding but bearable, but with every passing hour it turns into a merciless, unrelenting sun, searing every screaming nerve end.

They ask him over and over again, about the key, about the _Red Special_.

“What is the key? Where is it? What does it do?”

He tells them he has no idea what they`re talking about, at least while he can still speak. Much, much later, when his words have become too slurred to be intelligible, he can only whimper, terrified that maybe he has told them already and just doesn`t remember.

 _Don`t you forget about me_ , he`ll never know why they chose this particular song, a song he until then had never minded, quite liked even. After the hundredth, the thousandth time it has become pure torture, an earsplitting din standing between him and sweet, blessed sleep. At one point there is a second of silence after the song`s final strains have faded away and the knowledge that it will be broken again soon almost worse than the music when it begins once more. This time Brian lets his head sink onto the table and weeps.

It is only when they drag him back to the cell again, that he realizes he has wet himself. John props him up (he thinks it is John, he can`t really tell anymore) while Roger divests him of his trousers and cleans him with a wet rag. By the time they finally lower him onto his cot, Brian is already asleep.

He sleeps for 48 hours straight, or so Roger tells him later. When he finally does wake again, it is to the sound of someone softly singing _Happy Birthday_. At first he isn`t sure he`s not dreaming, but then he hears Roger`s sleepy voice mutter: “Deacy…what the fuck?”

“It`s Laura`s birthday”, John just says before beginning to sing again.

They both listen for a moment, John`s voice is nowhere near as bad as he`s always claimed, it`s quite pleasant even, harmonizing well with Roger`s as he joins in. Then they all sing _Happy Birthday_ for a girl somewhere out there in the darkness behind that small, barred window.

When their voices are replaced by the sound of John`s muffled weeping, Roger rises quietly and lies down next to him to pull the other man into his arms. It seems hardly possible for two grown men to fit onto the narrow cot, let alone three, but that is how they find them when the door of their cell is opened at dawn.

After that night, even John seems to lose track of time. Their fight against the quiet despair that wants to swallow them whole becoming ever more futile in the face of those days of unrelenting suffering, intended to break them, to make them surrender their secret at last. Sometimes Brian recalls those days in Montreux, when they`d first conceived of this plan that was beginning to seem more and more impossible with each passing day. Freddie had already been quite ill by then. Still he`d flounced around the studio, declaring himself to be a shining star.

Even back then it had amazed Brian that, although he`d been so weak, he`d had to sing sitting down, Freddie had still been able to flounce. Once he`d even pulled a handful of glitter from his pocket and chuckling thrown it into Brian`s face. It`s one of the memories he clings to when nothing else seems to stand between him and an abyss of utter hopelessness anymore.

And yet he feels himself inching ever closer to that abyss. One day Roger returns to their cell with a wad of gauze taped over his right eye. Brian tries to make a makeshift compress for him out of his pillowcase, but Roger doesn`t want it. Another two days pass before he tells them it`s gone.

“Guess I`m a pirate now”, he says almost cockily, but there are tears in his remaining eye, that beautiful blue eye, as he tries to grin.

Brian barely makes it to the small stainless steel sink before he vomits, suddenly horribly aware of what those men are trying to do. Trying to destroy the “pretty” one by destroying his face. John just sinks onto his cot and cries until Roger shouts at him to stop. This time there are no attempts at healing magic anymore, from neither of them. John doesn`t leave his cot for the following two days, not until the men come to take him away once again.

After that it`s as if Brian and Roger were sharing a cell with a ghost. John still eats and drinks and showers when they remind him to, but he moves like a sleepwalker and even when they speak to him directly, he seems unable to answer, his mouth opening and closing without any sound escaping, as if he`d simply forgotten how to speak at all.

Two days later they find out that Brian had been right. They made the weakest one go first.

They know immediately, the moment they spot the two men in their dark suits standing in the doorway. “Deacon,” one of them just says, motioning with his head towards John. John is a little unsteady on his feet as he shuffles towards them, but his expression is quite placid, even when they twist his arms behind his back to handcuff him.

Next to him Roger releases a wordless growl and makes as if to move towards those men, but Brian stops him with a hand on his arm. They couldn`t help John anymore, no one could, resistance would only make it more difficult for him. So they just stand there and let it happen.

“Good bye, Deacy”, Roger says eventually. “Say _hi_ to Freddie from us and tell him…tell him we won`t be long.”

Brian nods his agreement, let those bastards know that, no matter what, they won`t be caving.

John smiles slightly. “I will”, he says softly. It`s the first time he has spoken in weeks.

“We love you, Deacy. Don`t ever forget that…we love you”, is all Brian finally manages to say around the choking lump in his throat.

And now words seem to fail John once again, he just points at them and then makes a gesture as if turning a key above his heart. Locked up safely in there, the two of them. And suddenly Brian doesn`t see that middle-aged man with the graying hair, standing there in the doorway, still smiling at them, anymore. He sees the nineteen year old kid that they first met all those years ago and he wants to fall to his knees, to implore those men to spare him. _Don`t do it, for god`s sake, don`t do it. Let him go. He`s only a kid._

But the moment passes and the door closes before them. They stand there, staring at it in silence, for a seeming eternity before finally sitting down at the table, not daring to look at each other. They still haven`t spoken a single word when some time, very much later, someone knocks on the door.

“It`s not too late for the two of you yet”, a man`s voice says behind it. “Don`t make the same mistake your friend made…tell us what you know.”

Neither of them replies, but Brian can feel a scream beginning to build, deep down inside his chest. John was gone. Gone for good, gone forever. His mouth opens, but only a sigh comes out, even that release would be denied to him.

Next to him Roger mumbles something unintelligible.

“What?” Brian whispers, not certain he hasn`t imagined it.

“ _Queen_ are: Freddie Mercury… John Deacon… Brian May and Roger Taylor”, Roger repeats a little more audible this time.

For a moment Brian just stares at the other man, stares until Roger raises his head to look him straight in the eye, defiantly. And then they both say it, louder this time, say it over and over again until they`re shouting at the top of their voices, shout for what seems like hours until they have no voices left to shout anymore.

That night Roger is woken from his leaden, exhausted sleep by a trembling, sweat drenched Brian, tugging at his sleeve like a frightened child.

“I…I d-don`t think I can do it”, he whispers.

Roger immediately sits up to pull the other man into a lose embrace.

“Calm down, mate…do what?” he asks softly.

Brian`s teeth chatter so violently, he can hardly get the words out.

“B-be the strong one…I d-don`t think I can do that.”

Roger gently dabs at Brian`s face with his sleeve, but his voice is steely when he speaks.

“You have to”, he says. “I`m sorry Bri, but you have to. You`re the only one who can do what needs to be done… and you _can_ do it, I know that”

Miserable, Brian just shakes his head.

“ ` course you can. Look at me, Bri.”

Still sniffling, Brian does.

“You can do it `cause otherwise…otherwise this`ll all have been in vain.” Roger says.

“And…and `cause we are the champions, remember?” he adds a little helplessly.

Brian _tries_ to remember and that has to be enough. From that night on, they both sleep in Roger`s cot.

He has absolutely no idea how long he can keep trying to remember, but if he can`t be the strongest, Roger seems to have decided, he is going to have to be the weaker one. Brian can`t even begin to imagine what it must cost him to let go of that last shred of pride that he has managed to cling onto for so long.

From now on Roger screams, cries and begs for mercy every time those men come for him, imploring them not to hurt him anymore. Brian just cowers on his cot and hides his face in his hands, wondering just how much of his friend`s desperate outbursts is fake and how much is simply a release of what he`s been suppressing for so long.

Another week or so passes and Roger loses another two teeth. This time he accepts Brian`s pillowcase compress without hesitation.

“They`re falling for it hook, line and sinker”, he tells him and that tiny spark of pride still left in his voice is enough to turn Brian`s attempted smile into a sob.

 The blood stained wad of fabric is still damply clinging to Roger`s face as he falls into a restless sleep later that night. Brian is absurdly grateful that at least Roger can still sleep.

When the men in the dark suits appear in their cell the next morning, it is clear that they really did fall for it hook, line and sinker and now the time has come for Roger to pay the ultimate price.

Offering no resistance, he allows the men to handcuff him in complete silence, his gaze never leaving Brian`s face. And Brian tries so hard to find the words as two decades of love and trust and friendship want to force their way past his lips. But some things can`t be voiced, he realizes, they can only be felt. So he just lightly clasps the other man`s face between his palms and presses a gentle kiss to his forehead.

“Good bye, little brother.”

Roger turns his face to kiss Brian`s palm and smiles, smiles a gap-toothed, one eyed smile and Brian wishes all the girls who swooned over the blond`s good looks could see him now. Could see how beautiful Roger truly was.

“Good bye, Brimi…love you…always”, Roger says. And then he`s gone.

Brian listens to their footfalls fade into the distance and then he`s an only child once again.

But no, he will never be an only child again, because _Queen_ are Freddie Mercury, John Deacon, Roger Taylor and Brian May. He says it out loud, over and over again, as the tears finally overwhelm him.

When they take him into the room with the eternally shining sun and the ceaseless noise again, he laughs into their faces and tells them they`re wasting their time. This time they do beat him.

Afterwards, when they finally return him to his cell, he crawls onto his cot on his hands and knees, realizing that he doesn`t want to sleep anymore, he wants to wake up from this nightmare at last. It is strange, Brian thinks, how the impossibility of a future brings the past so much closer than it has ever seemed. Lying there in the darkness, it seems so near, as if he could almost reach out and touch it. The faces of his friends, his family, so much more vivid before his mind`s eye than they have ever been.

Even his parents, young and healthy and smiling, the way they were when he was a little boy, even beloved pets, that have been gone for ages, that night in his cell, they all seem to be there with him, unseen but there and Brian knows that this night will be his last.

When the sun rises, the men in the dark suits appear again and Brian is ready. He is finally leaving and there is only one more thing left for him to do.

This time, there is only a lone neon tube humming on the ceiling of the interrogation room, the heavy desk, before which he`s sat for countless hours, empty, the tape recorder already cleared away.

“So…this is it, May.” One of the dark-clad men says, his voice completely neutral.

Brian only nods.

“Any”, the man clears his throat, as one might before saying something silly or objectionable. “Any last request?”

“I would like…I would like to play my guitar one last time”, Brian says softly, gazing down at the floor.

He couldn`t let them know just how important it was to him.

Beside him, the other man snorts incredulously, but some kind of communication must have passed between them, for Brian hears him opening the door and calling for someone to bring that “ bloody guitar”.

It is not the _Red Special_ , of course, _that_ they would never find, they`d made sure of that, but it is one of his favorite acoustic guitars, holding many wonderful memories and Brian almost has to bite back a sob as it`s placed in his hands. _Welcome back, my old friend_ , he thinks, holding the instrument with something close to tenderness.

And then the time has come to play his last song.

The first note sounds like a sigh of relief, one that Brian echoes subconsciously. It feels just a little strange, new even, now that his fingers have lost most of their calluses, but soon the familiarity takes over again and he sinks into that feeling of joy like into a warm, soothing bath.

His fingers seem to recall every note they have ever played, dancing across the strings as they sing their song to the stars. No matter that there is a sterile, white ceiling above him, Brian can see them behind his closed eye lids, their silver light shining and sparkling in the darkness of the cosmos.

They must now become the guardians of his song, keep it safe in their light until the time has come to release it once more. Underneath his feet, the ground seems to vibrate with a gentle hum as it soaks up every note like rain in the desert and Brian wonders detachedly how those men can fail to feel it.

And then the walls themselves seem to shrivel away like dry leaves before the music, leaving him serene and alone under a majestic sky that suddenly seems near enough to touch. A happy, grateful smile spreads across his face, even as the tears begin to fall from his eyes.

It will not have been in vain, he knows that now. And it will not be over, the music would outlast those men and their ambitions, it would outlast him, it would even outlast the universe itself. It truly would be eternal. Safe in that knowledge, he finally plays the key, that last song he and his brothers have written. Lets it sink its roots deep into the ground below, lets it wrap itself around the stars above, lets it become one with all creation.

When the last note is finally nothing more than a gently ebbing echo, his entire body is shaking with fatigue and his fingers are dripping with blood, yet he is still smiling. He doesn`t stop, even when they take his guitar away and lead him into a small, tiled room just behind the interrogation room.

Now the hammer would finally fall.

He hears footsteps behind him, soft and stealthy _. Major Bri to ground control, I´m stepping through the door,_ Brian thinks wistfully.

“ _Queen_ were: Freddie Mercury, John Deacon, Roger Taylor and Brian May”, he whispers.

There is the soft clicking of a gun being cocked.

Brian closes his eyes and walks into his brothers` waiting arms.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
